BLUE MOON

A Rhode Island fishing family rides out some rough seas, both emotionally and literally, in Rice's latest (and most crafted-for- popular-success) effort. Cass Keating, third daughter and third generation of the family that's controlled a big hunk of the Mount Hope waterfront for decades, works for the family business and is married to her high-school sweetheart, Billy Medeiros, a fisherman. Cass and Billy have three children, two teenagers and four-year-old Josie, who has a severe hearing impairment. Josie's problems have shaken the very fabric of the Medeiros and Keating families, stirring tensions and highlighting the weak spots. The troubles seem contagious, affecting the older children, Cass and Billy's marriage, and even the very future of the Keating enterprise. Rice's trademarks are fine writing, a good eye for small detail, and an uncanny way of conveying the mysterious glue that holds families together— especially the bond between sisters. All of that can be found here, along with some well-wrought suspense revolving around a sea rescue. But some of the subtlety in the writing—the spark of edginess that especially characterized her earliest work, Angels All Over Town (1985)—has given way to the more explicit here. The glue is too often just sticky stuff. And the X-rated sex and masturbation scenes manage to be both funny and repulsive at the same time. Old Rice, then, with a new recipe—loves and fishes to feed the masses. (First printing of 35,000; First serial to Good Housekeeping)